Internet-based advertising has had varying degrees of success. Advertising such as banner ads may be shown to visitors to a webpage. Banner ads, however, are sometimes ineffective. Ad viewers may ignore the banner ads because the ads are usually not tailored to appeal to the user. Ad viewers might not feel that the ad sends a message that is relevant to them. Because the message of the ad is not considered relevant by ad viewers, the ad suffers from a lower click-through rate. Ad viewers miss an opportunity to obtain a valuable service or product, and the advertiser loses a valuable opportunity to gain a customer.
As recognized by the inventors, increasing the relevance of the overall message conveyed by the ad is desired. In one approach, the content of a webpage that a user is viewing is used to choose an ad for a user. However, the message of the ad is still not tailored to appeal to the user. Such an approach only addresses the interests of the user at the moment that the user is viewing the webpage, and may not appeal strongly to the user. In light of such drawbacks, a better approach to delivering an advertising message that more strongly appeals to the user is desired.